Old Mill Managers House

Statement of Significance

Worsley Mill Managers’ House has cultural heritage significance as one of only a few buildings remaining in the Worsley townsite and for its association with the Worsley timber mill as the Mill Manager’s house.

Physical Description

The place is difficult to view from the public domain due to dense vegetation. The 1996 Shire of Collie Municipal Heritage Inventory describes the house as having internal walls lined with tongue and grooved jarrah boards in an unusual profile.

History

A timber mill was constructed at Worsley in 1882 but because of the cost of transporting the timber to Bunbury, it closed the following year. Richard Honey & Co of South Australia opened two mills at Worsley in 1890 following the opening of the railway to Bunbury two years earlier. The mills were sold to the Jarrah Timber and Wood Paving Corporation in 1898. By 1902, when the Worsley mills combined under the one banner with a number of other mills as ‘Millars Timber and Trading Company’ , the town supported a population of about 1500. The town is first listed in the Post Office Directories in 1903. The Mill Manager’s house was constructed in 1902. The township closed after the outbreak of World War II. The 1996 Shire of Collie Municipal Heritage Inventory advises that the house was used as a post office and became a focus of the town. However local anecdotal evidence indicates that the Post Office was located approximately 80 metres to the south-east. Fallen Timber: A history of the Worsley District notes that the house was extended by Lionel White in 1906 to become ‘a far more elaborate affair’. Mill managers lived in the house until the mills closed in 1914, the last manager/caretaker being Mr Brown. The house was purchased in 1942 by Dave Wallis and his wife Nellie lived there until their deaths in the early 1960s. David Arthur (Tom) Wallis lived there until 1977, followed by his sister Elvie and her husband Bill Hughes. It was later sold to Gordon Woolf (editor of the Collie Mail) and to Tania Myles (now Roberts) and Lawrie Roberts in 1991. Tania is a great-grandaughter of Collie’s midwife, Nurse Jones. Restoration works were undertaken in 2001 including re-roofing, re-stumping and re-cladding works. In 2016, the house is in use as a private residence.

Integrity/Authenticity

Medium/ Medium

Condition

Unknown

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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